This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Vehicles are known to include a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (“HVAC”) system to improve the comfort of the people within the passenger compartment of the vehicle. The HVAC system can heat and cool air blown through the HVAC system using a heating heat exchanger and/or a cooling heat exchanger. The heating heat exchanger, or heater core typically utilizes the engine coolant as a source of heat for heating the air. The cooling heat exchanger is typically an evaporator which is part of an air conditioning system in the vehicle.
Vehicle HVAC systems typically have internal passages and ducts for routing air through the system. The passages can route air to various components of the system, such as the evaporator, or the heat exchanger for example, before the air is directed into the ducts to be expelled into the passenger compartment.
Generally, HVAC systems can include doors, or gates within these passages that can be moved between opened and closed positions to selectively control airflow through the individual components, such as the heat exchanger for example. The position of these doors can be generally controlled by devices, such as servo motors, or linear actuators. When the door allows some air to pass through the heat exchanger and some air to bypass the heat exchanger, the hot and cold air generally must mix in a space down-stream of the door before being directed into individual ducts. Smaller HVAC systems can be lighter and fit in more compact vehicles. However in compact HVAC systems, this mixing space can be relatively small, which can result in incomplete mixing of the hot and cold air. Adequate mixing of the hot and cold air can be important to passenger comfort levels by ensuring a uniform temperature of the air expelled to the passenger compartment. Accordingly, there exists a need for a device that more completely mixes the hot and cold air without increasing the size of the HVAC system.